Congratulate Our Congregants of the Year

September 2020   Keeping Connected

This month I want to focus my article on the upcoming recipients of the Congregant of the Year awards.  Because of COVID, we have had to delay the celebration of these awards, which usually occurs in June.  Back in May and June, we were hopeful to be together on the high holidays so we could celebrate these awards together, but we do not want to prolong the celebration anymore so we will make time during the upcoming holidays to recognize our current award recipients.

At Congregation Shalom, our Congregant of the Year program allows us to recognize members who have gone above and beyond in the amount of time they devote to volunteering in our community and have had an impact, and usually award winners have demonstrated this dedication for more than just the past year.  Our policies & procedures asks us to consider the following words/phrases when selecting our Congregant of the Year nominees: Commitment, Selflessness, Volunteerism, Dedication, Duration of Time Committed, Magnitude, Impact on the Congregation, Creativity.  Well, I think this year’s Congregant of the Year recipients have touched on those words/phrases in many different ways.

Cory Myers

Cory has been the chair of our Finance Committee for the last few years.  The Finance Committee at Congregation Shalom is one of those committees that we do not hear from too often because they are working behind the scenes.  Cory has re-structured our budgeting processes, created spreadsheets to evaluate every last detail of our budgeting needs (income and expenses), and has been able to clearly relay this information to the board and membership, which has ultimately allowed the temple leadership to be more transparent about the budgeting process.  He continues to spend hours perfecting these spreadsheets and also his presentations to the board and membership.  He keeps us in line with our spending restrictions, has a thorough understanding of the bylaws and has been a big help to me in following the temple’s spending rules.  Cory is also very active on the Pledge Committee and has contributed to the development of the pledge forms, FAQs, and other material produced by that committee.  Cory also played a big role in the research of the solar panel project for our congregation and developed financial models to ensure we were making a sound investment.  Cory does not complain EVER, he can always be counted on to get the job done, get it done on time, and with the highest level of quality.  He has devoted hours to coming up to speed on the temple finances and creating a sustainable system for us to be able to use well into the future.

Larry Cohen

Larry has been the chair of the House Committee for the last few years.  We are so lucky to have Larry in this position.  He has selflessly devoted hours and hours to the upkeep of our building and he does not miss a detail.  Larry prepares reports for the board twice a year on behalf of the House Committee.  These reports are always eye opening to the amount of work and upkeep our building needs.  Larry has been involved with so many different activities including cleaning of drainage swales, dealing with trash and recycling vendors, overseeing enclosures of our trash, recycling, and clothing bins, maintaining our HVAC systems, restoring the burning bush structure on the exterior of our building, organizing a deep cleaning of the temple’s kitchen and attic area, managing our temple handyman, caring for our parking lot, handling and sometimes doing the landscaping, getting our temple ready for high holidays (no easy task when we are in the building), managing our snow plowing contractors, and cleaning our gas stove (with detailed instructions written up for the next cleaning).  Larry led the effort for the solar panels we recently purchased.  As we know, this was a thorough process, interviewing and researching many vendors, and finally selecting a vendor, preparing a presentation for the board, and overseeing the installation.  Larry also was a co-leader of the grant task force we established this year to apply for a security grant.  Under his co-leadership, we were able to put together a most professional grant proposal and were able to secure funds from the state for a new security system (which you will be hearing about soon).  He has also been heavily involved in overseeing the installation of this new system.  Larry is genuinely concerned about our temple building, how it looks, and what he and his committee can do to maintain it and provide improvements.

I hope I was able to reflect a small part of why Cory and Larry are so deserving of this high honor.  Please join me in thanking Cory and Larry for their patience, dedication, and commitment to excellence, all of which have a huge impact on our congregation’s wellbeing.

I wish you all a very sweet, happy, and healthy New Year.  I hope we are able to be together soon.  I really do miss everyone!!

Stay well..
Shana Tovah,